Musings of a quirky, serendipitous soul…

Maybe you were waiting to give me this last wound.
This last hurt.
These final tears.

And this may be the last time I’m writing about you.
This last cry.
This final goodbye.

It’s true, I don’t love you anymore.
But dear god how I did.
How I did love you with every shred of my being.

Sometimes, you loved me too.
When you lay your tired aching body next to me and snored in bliss, you loved me.
When you held my hand as if it was something you’d be doing all your life, you loved me.
When you kissed me as if it was habit, you loved me.

Sometimes you loved me. Sometimes I loved you too.
This is not one of those times.

You run because everyone runs. You don’t know where they’re going so you don’t know why you’re in the race. You slow down and get trampled.

That’s life.

No. That is not life.

I don’t know what life is. Who knows, really. And I am not going to try to figure it out. That is supposed to be done when you are done living it. All I know right now is that life is not supposed to be a battle. It is not a race against time. The more you fight time, the more it will resent you. Time runs because that is it’s nature. No matter how much you run behind it, it will always be ahead of you. Don’t waste your energy.

I’ve been thinking about birthdays. Why are we always so excited about them? I know I am. Every year. Why is the date that you were born on so important to the people around you?

The answer is simple. Because you’re important. You are worth celebrating. It’s a miracle that somebody as wonderful as you exists. And this day is a happy day just because of that fact.

All year round, you make mistakes, you falter, you work hard to correct them, you fail again, you beat yourself up, you are harsh on yourself. Then comes this one day when everyone around you showers love and hugs on you. When long lost friends call you up. When people who genuinely love you, are genuinely happy making your day. To remind you that you are beautiful albeit flawed. You are loved albeit misunderstood. You are missed and never truly forgotten.

99 is a brilliant compilation of Khushwant Singh’s writing, put together by his granddaughter Mala Dayal, and David Davidar, who has worked with him earlier as editor.

If you have never read Khushwant Singh, and are planning to pick up one of his books, make it this one. Singh’s writing was always unabashedly unapologetic, often provocative and sometimes bawdy. It was evident he enjoyed writing. And hence as a reader, you’d enjoy his writing too.

In the editors’ words, 99 “is intended to be a lasting tribute to an iconic and much loved writer.” The book, divided into fifteen sections, features Singh’s finest fiction, journalism, essays, translations, historical writings.

I enjoyed reading 99. Having read some of his fiction, it was a delightful revisit for me while his translations and some other pieces were new to me and they were very interesting. Singh has been one of our most fascinating writers and you should not miss this compilation of his finest work.

60 minutes by Upendra Namburi is one of the recent books I received for review and I finished it over this last weekend. It is the story of Agastya, the CMO at a corporate firm, who has 60 minutes to save both his job and his marriage.

The story is interesting, especially for someone like me who is also in the sales and marketing profession. Agastya is ambitious and arrogant while his adversary Sailesh is calculative, and the author describes very well the animosity and cold war between the two. However, sometimes the description of the enmity does seem a tad over the top.

The story also prominently features Maithili, Agastya’s ex, who is hell-bent on seeking revenge from him for breaking her trust. Their interactions are racy and passionate.

The book is a roller-coaster ride, really. Sometimes, the pace is fast and I was breezing through the pages, and yet there were certain sections that were hard to get through and they dampened the pace of the book. Overall, though, 60 minutes is a nice, interesting weekend read. Go pick it up and tell me what you think.

When you are constantly evolving every single day, why wouldn’t your dreams?

Many of us pick and choose from a list of dreams one dream/goal and stick to it and constantly strive towards it. It is a great thing, of course, to persevere. But I have often wondered, for how long? Will it make more sense to alter the dream a tad bit as life goes by, because if you are not the same anymore, why should your goals? Dreams don’t have to be given up on, but can change slightly for sure.

And it is failure, constant heartbreaking failure, that makes you ponder whether it is time to relook at your dreams and change them a little. Failure is fabulous that way. It makes you think. Success makes you a happy fool.

Today I am at the most scary stage of my life. I am in the process of tailoring my existing dreams to my current needs and situation. And to suit the new me. It is a scary stage indeed. But also the best and most exciting.

Update: I came across this post that I wrote in 2009. Also about dreams.